Читать книгу The Murder of Roger Ackroyd / Убийство Роджера Экройда онлайн

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‘Nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Well, perhaps it was not to be expected. But it would have meant so much-’

He broke off, stiffening all over. Then he stretched out his hand to one of the rustic chairs. he detached something from one side of it.

‘What is it?’ I cried. ‘What have you found?’

He smiled, unclosing his hand so that I should see what lay in the palm of it. A scrap of stiff white cambric.

I took it from him, looked at it curiously, and then handed it back.

‘What do you make of it, eh, my friend?’ he asked, eyeing me keenly.

‘A scrap torn from a handkerchief,’ I suggested, shrugging my shoulders. He made another dart and picked up a small quill – a goose quill by the look of it.

‘And that?’ he cried triumphantly. ‘What do you make of that?’

I only stared. he slipped the quill into his pocket, and looked again at the scrap of white stuff.

‘A fragment of a handkerchief?’ he mused. ‘Perhaps you are right. But remember this – a good laundry does not starch a handkerchief.’

He nodded at me triumphantly, then he put away the scrap carefully in his pocket-book.